Shedding some light on the situation

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crop person using smartphone in dark room

I was recently sitting at a restaurant with someone who was struggling to read the menu due to low light. It wasn’t candle-lit dining, mind you, but just normal evening setting at a mid-level pub-style restaurant. He was moving the menu forward and back as one of advanced age (and eyes) might do to see it more clearly, and then angling it toward the light fixture over the table next to us.

I suggested he use the light on his phone, and he pulled out his old iPhone 8 and tried to find the button that turns on the flashlight. After fumbling around for a while, he eventually gave up and just asked Siri to turn the flashlight on. It worked. Followed by “Siri, turn flashlight off.” That concluded our middle-age folly for the moment.

After getting home, I looked up the ways to turn on the flashlight for iPhones so that you can quickly do so when needed, even if you have Siri turned off (which I do).

This info is courtesy of a poster named “Myra” at EaseUS.com. (https://mobi.easeus.com/ios-tips/turn-on-flashlight-on-iphone-8-ios-11.html.)

Turn the flashlight on or off on your iPhone or iPad Pro

The LED flash on your iPhone or iPad Pro doubles as a flashlight, so you can get extra light when you need it.

There are a few ways you can turn your flashlight on or off:

Ask Siri

Here are a few examples of how you can use Siri to turn on your flashlight:

  • “Hey Siri, turn on my flashlight.”
  • “Hey Siri, will you turn on my flashlight?”
  • “Hey Siri, turn off my flashlight.”

Use Control Center to turn the flashlight off or on

  1. Swipe down from the upper-right corner to open Control Center on your iPhone or iPad. On an iPhone with a Home button, swipe up from the bottom to open Control Center.
  2. Tap the Flashlight buttonFlashlight icon. No alt supplied for Image
  3. To turn off the flashlight, tap the Flashlight buttonFlashlight icon again.

If you don’t see the Flashlight button when you open Control Center, you can change your settings to add it. Go to Settings > Control Center, then tap Flashlight in the list of available controls.

You can also turn on the flashlight from the Lock screen: Press and hold the Flashlight button, in the bottom-left corner.

Use the Action button to turn the flashlight on or off

  1. In the Settings app, tap Action Button.
  2. Swipe to the Flashlight icon. On the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, you can assign things like your Flashlight to the Action Button.
  3. Press and hold the Action button to turn the flashlight on or off.

The Action button is only available on iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

There you go. Hopefully this helps you correct a dim situation where you don’t have to go fumbling through your phone looking for the flashlight “ON” button. Knowing is half the battle, folks.

For you Android users, I admit I don’t know the first thing about using an Android phone. But I did find the information here so you can read it for yourself. https://www.androidpolice.com/how-to-turn-on-android-flashlight/

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